Religion: Fifty Million Converts?

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was an untouchable, reared in the Hindu teaching that even his shadow would pollute a high-caste Indian. Like every other good Hindu, he was enjoined for his soul's good to accept with resignation the life to which he was born. But even as a boy, Bhimrao had other plans. Supporting himself as a hamal (one who cleans floors and bathrooms), he worked his way through the village school, won a scholarship for college in Bombay, where reports of his intelligence reached the ears of the benevolent Gaekwar of Baroda. The Gaekwar sent him to the U.S. for two years' study at Columbia University.

Today stocky, bald Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, 58, is Minister of Law in the government of India, and no longer an untouchable; India's new government has outlawed untouchability. His favor is courted by the great and powerful, and even high-born Brahmins are flattered to be asked to tea with Minister Ambedkar in the tiffin room of the Indian Parliament.

But the caste system is still part of Hindu life; during Gandhi's lifetime Bhimrao had many struggles with the Hindu Mahatma. Though Gandhi insisted on abolishing untouchability, he favored keeping the caste system in a purified form. For several years Ambedkar has talked of trying to lead India's 50 million untouchables out of the Hindu fold.

Fifty million potential conversions is something to cause excitement in any religious group. Urgent overtures have been made to Ambedkar by Sikhs, Buddhists and Christian missionaries. For a time he flirted seriously with the Sikhs, but more recently he has turned toward Buddhism.

Last week Leader Bhimrao made his decision unequivocally clear. Addressing a mass meeting of untouchables at Colombo, Ceylon, he declared that the salvation of untouchables "cannot be discovered through political "platforms. After 35 years of hard political life, often having had to cross swords with high-ranking Hindu leaders, and exploring practically every religion in the world, I have come to the inevitable conclusion that our salvation is to be found only in Buddhism.

''If you want a doctrine or institution which does not deny you equality, economic emancipation, etc., there is no better platform than Buddhism and pursuance of the enlightened path of the Buddha . . ."

India waited to see how many untouchables would follow Leader Bhimrao into the Buddhist fold. Best-informed guessers predicted, a considerable boom for Buddhism.